If they add London everyone would be at or close to 0%. Total disaster here, nee...

dijit · on Feb 25, 2016

I moved away from london, I'm lucky that I don't have family there or an emotional attachment to the city itself.

I feel bad for the others, I made an above average wage and chomped over 60% of my salary in rent (+20% in bills and taxes), even if I could have afforded to buy when moving there initially, the rate of incline was so great that after 1 year I was completely unable to buy a studio apartment.

Crazy.

There are even anecdotes about how "my home earns more than I do". :|

iNerdier · on Feb 25, 2016

I grew up and still live in London and I have no possibility of ever buying anywhere to live in the city, let alone remotely near to my parents.

I would say the house earning more than I do is probably more the norm than the exception at this point, save for some very large high-fliers.

edandersen · on Feb 25, 2016

London is very much overdue a correction.

ajeet_dhaliwal · on Feb 25, 2016

Unless it's a 50%+ drop in prices it's going to make little difference to affordability for the occupations listed on this site (fire fighters, programmers, even doctors etc). Remember even if you are some high salary like £100,000 you can only borrow 3.5 times that. That buys nothing a family can live in here. The only option is to move, inherit a fortune or become a millionaire.

gutnor · on Feb 25, 2016

The situation has become extra-bad only in the last 2-3 years, but there are plenty of people that bought before 2012 across a wide variety of occupation. Especially zone 3 and up: 3 year ago a 3 bed house could be acquired for 180K GBP in ok-area zone 3 - not cheap, but not outrageously expensive for a couple - same house goes for over 400K GBP today.

Nowadays, there are still a lot of part-buy/part-rent scheme being built all over zone 2. Sure you only buy 25% to 50% share, but the flat under those scheme have very conservative estimation and rock bottom rental price ( for the other 50 - 75 % ) There are even better deals for key workers ( nurses, teacher, police officer, ... ) So strangely that is easier for a couple of nurse and teacher to get on the property ladder in London than for 2 reasonably paid city workers or said differently basically if you don't qualify for government benefit you must be real rich to afford London.

I agree with you, when a couple making 100K GBP would require social benefit to afford a modest 2 bed in the cheapest area your city, your housing market is fucked.